Released the same week Iraq announced it would join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), this video includes U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a member of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, and experts Ian Gary, senior policy advisor for extractive industries at Oxfam America, and Jonas Moberg, head of secretariat at EITI, speaking about how transparency in oil, gas and mining can empower citizens to hold governments accountable and gain benefit from their countries’ natural resource wealth.

-Ghana mine land
-“There is No Democracy and Transparency…” sign from Liberia EITI meeting

-U.S. Mining
-Kyrgyzstan scene

-Azerbaijan off-shore facility
-street scene

Text Graphic: 42 companies and more than 15 countries support the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative – an anti-corruption program where energy companies publish what they pay and countries publish what they receive.

Text: Sen. Cardin has proposed a bill (S. 1700) It would require companies to publish what they pay foreign governments for natural resources like oil and natural gas.

-Woman advocating for transparency
-Liberian citizen reading

-Baku derrick
-Baku transmission lines

Text Graphic: S. 1700 The Energy Security Through Transparency Act

Graphic: U.S. Helsinki Commission www.csce.gov

AUDIO:

Music: Piano

TEXT: 1.5 billion people living in resource-rich countries earn less than $2 a day.

Music: Piano

SEN. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN/Chairman, U.S. Helsinki Commission: It’s very frustrating when you have a country that has mineral wealth and the people don’t get the benefit of that wealth.

REP. ALCEE L. HASTINGS/Co-Chairman, U.S. Helsinki Commission: One of the things that is helpful for countries is to have the people know where the resources are, where they come from, and how much they cost.

IAN GARY/Oxfam Senior Policy Advisor for Extractive Industries: Transparency is empowering for people in developing countries because once they have the information they can start to have that democratic debate with their own country, with their government about how those revenues should be used.

CARDIN: The U.S. Helsinki Commission has made energy security a major priority and there are many aspects to it. One of them is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which is an effort to make sure that the mineral wealth of a country, particularly the developing world, is used for the benefit of its people.

SEN. SHELDON WHITHOUSE/Helsinki Commissioner: We have a very strong international interest in making sure that when we go into these other countries and export their commodities we are doing so in a fair in a transparent and in an upright way, because the long term costs of failing to do that are increased violence, national security hazards and significant problems for our country.

Music: drums, cymbals

TEXT: 42 companies and more than 15 countries support the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative – a program that makes energy companies publish what they pay and countries publish what they receive.

JONAS MOBURG/Head of Secretariat, EITI: How the Commission has convened meetings, how it and many of its bilateral contacts with ministers and representatives of other governments how it has brought up the EITI, it has put it on the agenda.

REP. HASTINGS: Clearly it is one of the most important issues for the global environment as it pertains to energy resources.

GRAPHIC TEXT: Sen. Cardin has proposed a bill (S. 1700) It would require companies to publish what they pay foreign governments for natural resources like oil and natural gas.

MR. GARY: This would be the first law of its kind in the world and would really be a ground breaking victory for transparency advocates and for citizens in resource rich countries.

SEN. WHITHOUSE: The corruption and the greed and the misallocation of resources that results from the corruption -- that is a problem for us and it’s a bigger problem for us than for other countries because we are a bigger player.